Much has already been written about the European Court of Human Rights’ (“ECtHR or the Court”) first substantive climate judgment Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz and Others v. Switzerland (“KlimaSeniorinnen”) (see for example here and here). This blog post takes that landmark ruling as a starting point to examine the role of procedural rights in climate litigation before the ECtHR. Procedural rights, as we argue, can be understood in a twofold manner: on the one hand, as admissibility criteria structuring access to the Court, and on the other, as substantive guarantees flowing from the Convention itself. Read in this light, KlimaSeniorinnen – alongside Greenpeace Nordic and Others v. Norway (“Greenpeace Nordic”) – reveals key developments in the Court’s emerging climate jurisprudence across both dimensions.

Against this backdrop, we argue that the Court’s restrictive criteria for individual victim status under Article 6 ECHR only allegedly serve to prevent actio popularis, while potentially limiting effective protection of Convention rights – especially in times of democratic backsliding. We further show that in Greenpeace Nordic, the Court developed important procedural safeguards under Article 8 ECHR to protect individuals from climate-related harm, yet applied these guarantees with notable restraint.

KlimaSeniorinnen: Victim Status and Standing Requirements Under Article 6 ECHR

In KlimaSeniorinnen, the Court introduced new, particularly strict victim status criteria for individual climate litigants (see also Judge Pavli’s contribution). Under the new victim status test, the threshold for individuals to prove they are personally and directly affected is especially high (KlimaSeniorinnen, § 488). The Court established that (1) individual applicants must show that they are subject to a high intensity of exposure to the adverse effects of climate change, that is, the level and severity of (the risk of) adverse consequences of governmental action or inaction affecting the applicants must be significant, and (2) the absence or inadequacy of any reasonable measures to reduce harm owes to a pressing need to ensure the applicants’ individual protection (KlimaSeniorinnen, § 487).

On Article 6 ECHR, the Court addressed victim status in conjunction with the question of the provision’s applicability. In doing so, it appears to have adopted the restrictive victim status criteria developed in the context of Article 8 of the Convention (KlimaSeniorinnen, §§ 478-488) as a ratione materiae threshold, into the assessment under Article 6. Notably, the Swiss Government did not contest the victim status of the individual applicants under Article 6. As Judge Eike underlined in his dissenting opinion, “there was, in fact, no dispute and no uncertainty” on this point (KlimaSeniorinnen, Dissenting Opinion, § 22). Against this background, the Court’s restrictive reading does not seem compelled by the circumstances of the case.

As is well established, the applicability of Article 6 requires (1) the existence of a “civil right”, (2) a “genuine and serious dispute”, and (3) that the outcome of the proceedings be “directly decisive” for the applicants’ rights (KlimaSeniorinnen, § 595). While the Court had little difficulty accepting the first two criteria, it drew a distinction regarding the third: it denied that the outcome was directly decisive for the individual applicants, yet affirmed this requirement for the applicant association. This distinction is difficult to reconcile with the Court’s own reasoning. The judgment acknowledged that the dispute had a “direct and sufficient link” to the rights of the association’s members (§ 618). At the same time, however, it did not consider the outcome to be directly decisive for those very members in their individual capacity. The resulting tension suggests that the Court sought to align its new approach of favouring associations over individuals regarding victim status under Article 8 with the uncontested victim status criteria under Article 6. The doctrinal basis for such an alignment remains open to discussion (see also KlimaSeniorinnen, Dissenting Opinion, § 28).

Preventing Actio Popularis?

The Court justified the particularly high threshold for individual victim status by invoking the need to avoid actio popularis, which is not permitted under the Convention. Yet it is not immediately clear that allowing individuals to bring claims of violations of their rights to climate protection would amount to such a prohibited form of litigation – simply because the outcome of the case may benefit the public at large.

This raises a more fundamental question: what qualifies an actio popularis in the Convention system? In general, an application is of an actio popularis nature where an applicant does not claim to be personally affected by a violation of a Convention right, but rather seeks to bring a complaint in the abstract or in the general interest. However, the Court’s case-law on victim status does not require individuals to be affected differently from others. The criteria for excluding actio popularis and for victim status are generally non-comparative. What is decisive, rather, is that an individual is affected in a legally relevant manner – regardless of how many others are affected as well. Likewise, the Court has not, in principle, treated the potential systemic effects of a judgment as an admissibility criterion. The fact that the case may “open the ‘floodgates’ of litigation” and encourage future climate cases is not decisive for the assessment of victim status (for a full argumentation by George Letsas, see here and here; see furthermore here).

Against this background, the Court’s reasoning in KlimaSeniorinnen appears to conflate distinct considerations: The concern underlying the judgment may be less about actio popularis in a strict doctrinal sense and more about the practical implications of climate litigation for the Court’s already considerable caseload. The Court has processed hundreds of thousands of applications since its establishment; in 2025 alone, 31,800 applications were allocated to judicial formation. While such considerations are undoubtedly relevant from an institutional perspective, incorporating them into the definition of victim status risks blurring doctrinal boundaries.

Standing of Associations: Does Membership Matter?

Turning to associative standing – “the other side of the ‘victim status’ coin”, as Judge Pavli described it –, the Court argued that the association “represents a vehicle of collective recourse aimed at defending the rights and interests of individuals against the threats of climate change” (KlimaSeniorinnen, § 523) and accepted its standing (for why this, too, does not amount to an actio popularis, see Corina Heri’s compelling argumentation here and here). What remains uncertain is how the Court intends to apply the criteria on associative standing it developed in KlimaSeniorinnen in future climate cases. To bring climate-related claims on behalf of their members associations must fulfil three criteria: they must demonstrate that (1) they are lawfully established or legally recognised in the jurisdiction concerned, (2) they pursue a dedicated purpose in accordance with its statutory objectives in the defence of the human rights against threats arising from the climate crisis, and (3) they are qualified and representative to act on behalf of its members or other affected individuals (KlimaSeniorinnen, § 502).

Already in a talk we gave at the 2024 Lisbon Climate Conference, we suggested that particularly the latter two criteria should not be applied too rigidly. A strict reading would risk excluding organisations such as Greenpeace, which are not structured as membership associations. The judgment in Greenpeace Nordic seemed to confirm a more flexible approach: both organisations were granted standing despite Greenpeace Nordic’s structure.

However, the recent inadmissibility decision in Fliegenschnee and Others v. Austria (“Fliegenschnee”) complicates this picture (for a more detailed discussion of the case, see here and here). As in KlimaSeniorinnen, the case involved individual applicants alongside an environmental association – Global 2000, Austria’s largest environmental NGO. While the Court swiftly rejected the individuals’ victim status, it left the association’s standing open, raising doubts as to whether it fulfilled the criteria set out in KlimaSeniorinnen, its purpose of defending human rights against climate threats and its representative function (Fliegenschnee, §§ 31–32). However, unlike Greenpeace Nordic, Global 2000 is formally a membership organisation and thus appears to meet the requirement of representativeness more readily. Against this background, the decision suggests a more restrictive reading of associative standing than Greenpeace Nordic would indicate, leaving the Court’s approach uncertain.

Greenpeace Nordic: Building Procedural Climate Safeguards Under Article 8 ECHR

In Greenpeace Nordic, the Court was confronted with a different type of climate complaint than in KlimaSeniorinnen: the case was not about what States must achieve, but rather about how they must decide. Two environmental NGOs – Greenpeace Nordic and Young Friends of the Earth – together with six individual applicants challenged Norway’s 2016 decision to grant petroleum exploration licences in the Barents Sea. Crucially, the applicants did not seek to prohibit oil production as such. Instead, they targeted the decision-making process, arguing that Norway had failed to carry out an adequate environmental impact assessment (EIA) and had thereby not ensured sufficient protection against climate harm (Greenpeace Nordic, §§ 1-2). This procedural framing shaped the Court’s approach: Greenpeace Nordic was treated as a procedural case under Article 8, closely aligned with the Court’s established environmental jurisprudence on information duties, rather than a case centring on substantive mitigation obligations of the kind at issue in KlimaSeniorinnen.

The Court reiterated that Article 8 entails a duty for States “to do [their] part” in ensuring effective protection from serious climate-related harm (Greenpeace Nordic, § 314). Importantly, it translated this duty to procedural safeguards. Central among these is the obligation to conduct an adequate, timely, and comprehensive EIA, in good faith and based on the best available science, before authorising potentially harmful activities (Greenpeace Nordic, § 318). For petroleum projects, this entails at least three requirements: (1) a comprehensive accounting of GHG emissions, including combustion emissions, both domestically and abroad, (2) a legal assessment of whether the project aligns with climate obligations, and (3) public participation at a stage where all options remain open and environmental harm can still be prevented at source (Greenpeace Nordic, § 319).

Closely linked to this is a right to information when climate risks are at issue. Drawing on its own case-law as well as the Aarhus Convention, the Court underlined that affected individuals must be informed about environmental risks to assess and avert them. Significantly, this right operates ex ante: it applies independently of whether the risk later materialises and is meant to shape decision-making before harm occurs (Greenpeace Nordic, § 295). Taken together, Article 8 includes robust procedural climate safeguards, particularly regarding early-stage information and participation.

A Gap Between Theoretical Findings and Practical Application?

Yet, having set out these requirements, the Court applied them with notable restraint. It concluded that Norway had complied with Article 8– even though key climate-related issues, such as exported combustion emissions, were not assessed at the licensing stage but deferred to later phases of the project (Greenpeace Nordic, § 330). This sits uneasily with the Court’s own emphasis on timing. The judgment stresses that EIAs must precede authorisation and that consultation must occur when meaningful alternatives are still available. Nevertheless, it tolerated a system in which decisive aspects of climate impact assessment were postponed and potentially addressed only after the core political and economic commitments had already been made (Greenpeace Nordic, §§ 331-336). The tension becomes even more apparent when viewed against the Court’s reliance on international materials emphasising early and preventive assessment (e.g. Aarhus Convention, Advisory Opinions of ITLOS, IACtHR, ICJ) (Greenpeace Nordic, § 320-324), as well as its precautionary logic in KlimaSeniorinnen, where it rejected postponing review to a stage at which mitigation opportunities are effectively lost (KlimaSeniorinnen, §§ 413, 548-549, 631-640).

A similar inconsistency arises regarding the right to information. In its earlier environmental case-law, the Court emphasised that serious long-term risks must be evaluated up-front (see, e.g. Taşkın and Others v Turkey, §§ 118-119; Guerra and Others v Italy, § 60). Information about climate risks, EIAs and public participation must therefore occur at a point in time when they can still meaningfully influence decisions and avert harm. Yet, in Greenpeace Nordic, the Court accepted a procedural design that arguably limits precisely this ability.

Conclusion: Procedural Rights as Gatekeepers and Guarantees

Taken together, KlimaSeniorinnen and Greenpeace Nordic illustrate how procedural rights operate along the two dimensions identified at the outset: as gatekeepers to the Court and as substantive guarantees under the Convention. On the substantive side, Greenpeace Nordic marks an important step in consolidating procedural safeguards under Article 8. Even though the application ultimately failed, the judgment clarifies that effective climate protection under the Convention is not only a matter of outcome, but also of process – in particular, timely information, early-stage assessment, and meaningful participation. On the admissibility side, the Court reshapes access to the Convention system in climate matters by setting a particularly high threshold for individual victim status while favouring associative claims – without yet offering a fully coherent doctrinal foundation.

However, what emerges with clarity is the structural importance of procedural rights in climate litigation: they do not merely shape how claims are assessed, but whether they can be brought at all. The Court’s reliance on associations is therefore not without risk. It assumes a functioning civil society – an assumption that becomes fragile in times of democratic backsliding and increasing autocratic tendencies. Where associations committed to climate protection are restricted, dissolved, or do not exist, restricting individual victim status may ultimately leave Convention rights without an effective procedural pathway.

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